


Dwellers in Darkness

by regentzilla



Category: Persona | Revelations Persona
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 23:12:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5068534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regentzilla/pseuds/regentzilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reiji wakes up to the gentle tap-tap-scrape of rough fingernails on glass beside his left ear and wonders if he might be dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dwellers in Darkness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MarsDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarsDragon/gifts).



Reiji wakes up to the gentle tap-tap-scrape of rough fingernails on glass beside his left ear and wonders if he might be dead. He wonders that every time.

The room is otherwise silent – the old house isn't creaking like it always does, there's no sound of cars whushing past through the rain, there is no rain – the silence is smothering, punctuated only by the erratic tap-tap-scrape that interrupts the quiet to send razor chills along Reiji's body.

He opens his eyes, lids heavy with sleep, and sees it.

It's distorted, slightly, rendered swollen by the glass between them – and it's tapping with hands that end in a single spindly digit. The glass the lid of a coffin, as it always is, close around Reiji's shoulders and compact enough that his breath condenses against it with each tight, shaking breath.

He tries to reach up to smack at the glass from his side, but finds his arms dead at his sides. It would be impossible to move that far in the coffin even if he were capable. The thing's face undulates, wet bulges pushing up against its flesh and threatening to burst through. Is it laughing at him?

It feels like days that he lies there, watching the thing squatting over him and tapping and touching the glass. When its face bubbles again, gurgles with motion and begins to split open from the top down to reveal something underneath, something horrible and unspeakable that Reiji knows he doesn't want to see, that he can't see, that he can't look away from because his entire body is betraying him–

He wakes up with a start, lying stock-straight on his futon, clammy with sweat and shaking with every rabbitish pulse of his heart. He smacks his alarm off before he can register what the newscaster is saying and lies staring at the light fixture above him, arms and legs akimbo, waiting for the vice of claustrophobia around his chest to ease and let him breathe again.

The apartment is empty – his girlfriend is visiting her family out in the countryside. Something about her needing to relax and get some fresh air, for the sake of the baby, but her mother and sisters had stared at Reiji while they insisted. He misses her while he has breakfast, leftover rice and a fried egg. He's gotten used to making food for two (three, she would correct him, patting her burgeoning stomach) and chatting about nothing while they ate. It always helps clear his head after the nightmares, and they aren't showing any signs of stopping.

Instead, he finishes eating and dresses in silence, and steps out the door to a brisk morning. The walk to the train station is silent but for a few crows – it's too early for the rest of the neighbourhood to be up.

The bottom falls out of his stomach when he steps onto the train and sees the single other occupant, horned and wrinkled and hunched over in the corner of the car, and he feels a pressure behind his eyes and a swell of adrenaline. Purple licks at the corners of his vision.

He's almost sick as the relief washes over him in the same second, as the other occupant stands and unzips his jacket. It's just some kid, some high school punk with a black windbreaker on and a face smeared with cheap costume makeup. The horns are plastic, and much to Reiji's private embarrassment, the colour of candy corn.

He realizes with a start that it's Hallowe'en. Of course. He turned off the radio before he heard the date. How foolish to get so worked up about nothing.

It must be the kid's stop because he heads for the double doors, bumping into Reiji's shoulder as he goes. They make eye contact for a moment, Reiji inside the train and the kid on the platform.

The kid gestures to his own forehead, circling with his finger the spot where Reiji's scar is.

"Sick makeup!"

The doors close and the kid disappears around a corner as the train follows the curve of the tracks, but Reiji stays standing for another stop. Nobody gets on and the jolt as the train leaves again is enough to get him to sit down. He wedges his briefcase between his feet and rakes his fingers through his thinning fringe for the rest of the ride, waiting for the purple tinge in his vision to fade.

Akihabara is absolutely swarming with people and by the time the train reaches his stop Reiji is sandwiched in by a sexy angel and a wrestler. He has appointments with two restaurants and a cafe before he can go back home for the day and he can't remember the last time he was so nervous about doing his job – he pats down his hair once more before stepping out into the noise and bustle of the station, and then the street.

The partiers are already out in full force. (Still out from the night before?) He can't really blame them, since it is a Saturday, but it still sets his teeth on edge to see so many horned demons and undead beasts wandering the streets and chatting with their blood-spattered friends. He walks past more than one girl dressed as Alice in Wonderland but one in particular sends a jolt of recognition and fear through his body. Without thinking he reaches out and grabs her by the shoulder and she looks up at him, head tilted like a puppy. Her eyes are too pale, buglike and glassy, and it occurs to him that she could just be a stranger wearing circle lenses but there's something else that tweaks his memory, a feeling he can't name.

“I know you,” Reiji says, staring into her strange eyes. “What are you doing here?”

Alice giggles and flips her hair over her shoulder. “What's anybody doing here today, silly? It's Hallowe'en!” Nobody around them seems to notice, parting around them like a stream around a stone, but Reiji feels the focus of something on the two of them, as if a spotlight is zeroed in on their conversation.

He was right. It's been a while since he negotiated this kind of contract.

“You're not just here to party,” he intones, and he realizes he's slurring his words, trying to be intimidating. He hasn't spoken so brashly in years. “What do you want?”

Alice's face falls neutral. “It's the only day I get to walk around like this,” she says, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes. “Gimme a break. How was I supposed to know I'd run into you?”

“Don't be a brat,” he retorts, feeling the familiar pressure build behind his eyes again, “demons don't just hang out. What are you planning?”

She grins up at him, eyes squeezing closed. She looks like nothing more than a preteen in a costume. “I'm planning to have some fun, of course!”

Reiji doesn't want to summon his Persona, but if the negotiation goes sour he's fully aware that he might have to.

“Don't,” he says, “I need you to not do whatever you're planning.”

Alice pouts. “What's in it for me?”

“What do you want?” He doesn't have anything to barter with – it's been a long time since he had reason to carry gems or beads or chewing souls with him.

“I like those lovely knives you have with you,” Alice says. “I'd like one of those.”

Reiji freezes. The crowd around them is still moving along like nothing is happening, like someone isn't standing in the middle of the sidewalk trying to stop a demon from murdering all of them.

“Only if you swear you won't hurt anyone here.”

Alice nods and holds her hands out like a child waiting to be given a piece of candy.

“It's been so long,” she says once the knife is tucked away under her apron – how did nobody notice? – “we should catch up a little.”

“What the hell is there to catch up on?”

“My totem, of course! How is old Beelzebub these days? I miss that nasty old fly. Are you two still chums?”

With a disgusted noise he walks away and feels the contract closing, the energy of it dragging behind him like cobwebs. He hears Alice's twinkling giggle for a split instant before she's out of earshot.

He doesn't make any sales that day. One his way home some kind of incident further down the line delays the train for hours, but he doesn't register the details being muffled over the station loudspeakers (he doesn't particularly want to know, because a part of him already knows). For dinner he gets a cheap station bento that he doesn't taste a single bite of, and by the time he finally gets back home, almost full briefcase tugging an ache into his shoulders, it's cool and dark and blue outside. He skips watching the news because he's getting a headache and collapses onto his futon without taking off anything but his shoes, jacket, and tie.

He wakes up to the gentle tap-tap-scrape of rough fingernails on glass beside his left ear.


End file.
